The BBC has identified three men whom former prisoners of illegal prisons on Russia-occupied Ukrainian territory accuse of torture and abuse: Yuri Temerbek, Ruslan Yeremichev, and Andrei Spivak. All three currently reside in Russia, the outlet reported.
Temerbek, 56, a former traffic police officer in Novoazovsk, Donetsk region, switched sides after the city fell under the control of pro-Russian separatists in 2014. Former prisoner Lyudmila Khuseynova, 64, who was held in the prison known as 'Izolyatsia,' told journalists that Temerbek was present at her detention in 2019 and witnessed the sexual violence she suffered at the hands of another prison employee. The identity of the man who called himself 'Koval' could not be established. Khuseynova spent more than three years in detention. According to the BBC, Temerbek now lives with his family in the Rostov region. Ukrainian authorities accuse him of working for the so-called Ministry of State Security of the 'Donetsk People's Republic' ('DNR').
Ruslan Yeremichev, 46, known as Yermak in Izolyatsia, also participated in torturing prisoners. Khuseynova said he once forced her to eat raw food mixed with dirt and garbage. Yeremichev's identity was previously established by the investigative group Bellingcat and Ukrainian journalist Stanislav Aseyev, who was himself a prisoner of Izolyatsia. The most recent photos of Yeremichev found by journalists on social media date to 2024. The Ukrainian prosecutor's office accuses him of mistreating prisoners of war and civilians. Both Temerbek and Yeremichev were Ukrainian citizens and later obtained Russian passports.
The third subject of the investigation is Andrei Spivak, 40, an employee of the Russian prison system from Omsk. According to the Ukrainian prosecutor's office, he ran a secret prison in Kherson after the city was captured by Russian forces. Former prisoner, sailor Alexei Sivak, told the BBC that torture with electric shocks, including to the genitals, was practiced in the Kherson prison. Spivak is now back in Omsk, appears at Interior Ministry events, and has registered his car as a private taxi, according to his social media. He has been charged in absentia with mistreatment of civilians and violations of the laws of war.
In total, BBC journalists identified more than 90 locations on occupied Ukrainian territory where civilians and prisoners of war were held in 2023–2025. About a third were unofficial and located in garages, hotels, former tax office buildings, and other structures. Another 102 detention sites were found on Russian territory. According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, torture and abuse of civilians in such prisons are systematic. In May 2026, the UN added Russia to its blacklist of countries suspected of using sexual violence in conflict zones.
According to Ukrainian authorities, more than 16,000 civilians have been detained or have gone missing in occupied territories since 2014. The Ukrainian prosecutor's office has opened cases against dozens of people accused of abusing Ukrainians in Russian prisons. Only two individuals linked to Izolyatsia have received actual prison sentences: former 'DNR' figure Roman Lyagin, sentenced to 15 years in April 2026, and former Izolyatsia head Denis Kulikovsky, who received the same sentence in January 2024.